To paraphrase US military commander , we continue to know more about war than about peace, more about killing than about living. Our world is one of military giants (in his case nuclear military giants) and ethical infants. We work assiduously on militarisation and only fleetingly, if at all on its related ethics.
The list is depressingly familiar – the US, China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, the UK and Germany. So, too the list of the most recent and devastating impacts – Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, Gaza, Ethiopia, sub-Saharan Africa ..
. Each of the world’s nine nuclear-armed countries is now spending with an increase of 13% in 2023 alone to a record $US91.4 billion.
This is equivalent to €2,700 per second. Overall military spending per person is now at its highest since 1990, at US$285 for every person on the globe, including children. Despite constant assurances to the contrary, it seems that the more we weaponise and militarise, the more insecure we become.
There appears to be a forever inverse relationship between the ideas, hardware and finances for conflict and war and those available for or committed to peace. Increasingly, peacebuilding and peace initiatives are deemed a sign of weakness whereas bearing ever-increasing arms becomes the symbol of assumed strength. We wage war in the name of peace while describing weapons of offence as weapons of defence.
The sheer cost is truly immense as well as being actually and potentially devastating for all, and n.
